(disclaimer: no, we did not win this trophy. I just thought it would look cool. Who wants a blog post with no pictures?)

Wow, it's been a good year for the Razorback. In addition to winning a Silver Crown, something like 30 CSPA Gold Circles, being named a Pacemaker finalist and having our Web site named as a Pacemaker finalist, we just brought home 21, count 'em, 21, awards from the Arkansas College Media Association. Woo Hoo!

All in all, it's been a great year, and while we get excited about all the awards we do win, I think we also learn a lot from what we don't win. We hoped for a Gold Crown this year, but didn't get one. So that gives us something to strive for next year. Similarly, these ACMA awards are mostly for our design, which is something we have been incredibly aware of the past few years. We have cried, bled, sweat, spent many a sleepless night in the office and snagged professors, staff members and anyone else who happened to walk by our office, stood them in front of a computer and asked them, "Okay, so what design do you like better? This one? Or this one?"
So of course, it is incredibly validating to get rewarded for our design.

But it's interesting that we didn't win a lot of awards for our stories. I think it highlights an area where we need improvement. With any luck, this year's stories will show some of that improvement. And then we can assess our progress and refocus again.

But all in all, we've been kickin some butt this year. Let's hope it continues....
-Megan

Here's the list of our ACMA awards for 2009:

Yearbook Cover Design:
First Place—Shannon Sanders, Megan Garner, Hamilton Hedrick

Yearbook Introduction Theme Page:
First Place—Shannon Sanders, Megan Garner,

Yearbook Divider Theme Page:
First Place— Megan Garner, Hamilton Hedrick, Helen Chase
Greek Division
Honorable Mention—Megan Garner, Hamilton Hedrick, Helen Chase
Sports Division

Yearbook Closing Theme Page:
First Place— Megan Garner, Shannon Sanders

Yearbook Endsheets:
First Place—Shannon Sanders, Megan Garner, Hamilton Hedrick

Yearbook Feature Layout:
First Place—Megan Garner
Concerts page
Third Place—Hamilton Hedrick
Frank Broyles timeline

Yearbook Academic Layout:
Third Place—Hamilton Hedrick
Horse and Tack Auction
Honorable Mention—Helen Chase
Art in Rome

Yearbook Organization/Greek/Portrait Layout:
Honorable Mention—Megan Garner, Helen Chase
Names and Numbers (people section)

Yearbook Sports Layout:
First Place- Megan Garner
Razorback and Lady’Back Track
Third Place—Helen Chase
Gymbacks

Yearbook Sports Writing:
First Place—Megan Garner
Razorhogs

Typographic Presentation:
First Place—Hamilton Hedrick
Second Place—Megan Garner

Feature Photo:
Honorable Mention—Divesh Brahmbhatt

Sports Photo:
First Place—Vance Green
Second Place—Nick Carter
Third Place—Darren McNeill

General Excellence:
Second place

I like to call this post, "How You Know You've Spent Too Much Time In The Yearbook Office." And I shall subtitle it, "Deadline Three Pushes Editor Shannon Sanders Off The Deep End."


So. You know you've spent too much time in the basement of Kimpel when your poor addled brain starts thinking thoughts like these.

Setting: It's Saturday afternoon and we are crazy behind on deadline. To make things worse, we have a mountain of proofs on our desks that we need to edit and correct. So we plan to go in Sunday to work.
The following is an actual transcript of mine and Shannon's texting conversation:

Shannon: What time do you want to go in to the office tomorrow?

Megan: Ug. I don't know. Ten? Ten thirty?

Shannon: Okay, how about ten?

Megan: Sigh. Okay.

Shannon: Woohooo! It'll be funsies. Like we are captured by crazy bayou pirates who are making us do all of their yearbook work for them in a cool underground fort. At least that's what I'm going to think about.

Megan: Um, you are off a cliff right now.

Labels: deadline, editors, funny, office, yearbook

Well, suffice it to say we are a bit behind. We have missed a deadline and for some reason, been unable to make it up in the following deadlines.
So we are about 80 pages behind where we should be at this point.
Yikes!

So this means we are pushing harder than ever to send about 150 pages at the end of this month. Which is kind of scary, but not impossible.

But regardless of how daunting it is to try to crank out these pages, we are really excited about our content. We have some AWESOME stuff we are working on.
Here's a few examples to tease you:

-We are sending pages about the concerts on campus. With amazingly beautiful photos of course.

-We are doing a feature I like to call "The Many Faces of John Pelphrey." It's true it pokes a bit of fun, but all in good taste. Pelphrey is the man.

-A profile of one of our campus characters, a young man who rides around on a unicycle. Impressive? We think so.
-And we are sending in four pages showing the variety of speakers we have had on campus this year, from T. Boone Pickens to Magic Johnson to former president George H. W. Bush.

So just mull on that. Sounds pretty kickin, eh?
Now if we can just get these pages finished and out of here...
-Megan